Somewhere on the outskirts of reason... Or where good television can be found.

Sunday, August 05, 2007

The Tremors 'Invasion Of The Saucermen'

For some reason, I thought the DVD set from AC/DC called Family Jewels would be cool… But so far, I haven’t been impressed.

Netflix sent me one of the two from that set and the envelope said that it was disc 1. That wasn’t the case and I’m sure it’s not their fault. I’m pretty sure that some bonehead that rented it before me got both of them at the same time and just put them in the wrong sleeves.

The second disc had all the videos on it… So I just let ‘em play. And there was one thing that I noticed about AC/DC’s music… They are some cymbal crashing mofos!

Phil Rudd seemingly had some sort of twisted cymbal fetish. I never noticed until I saw the videos. And I’m willing to bet that one AC/DC song has more cymbal crashes in it than any 3 other rocks songs you’d like to compare it against.

Did I ever tell you that my Grandmother Pence sounds a lot like Brian Johnson when she sings?

I’ve been meaning to get her on tape singing “The Old Rugged Cross” for Rock 92 listeners, but I always forget to bring a recorder. And I’m not in church that much. If I knew that she had a sense of humor about it, I’d love to get her singing along with an AC/DC tune.

I’ve seen AC/DC more than a few times, but I never got to see them with Bon Scott. The one concert that comes to mind was November 17th, 1985. I went with my friend Renee’ and we had second row seats. IT WAS CRAZY!

At first, everything was okay… We had our seats and we were in a great spot for Yngwie Malmsteen who was opening up for them. But once Mr. Malmsteen left the stage… Everyone behind us started pushing forward. It was like a flash flood of people. I lost track of Renee’ until I heard her screaming my name. She was ahead of me and to the left about 12 feet. How she got there, I don’t know.

People started pulling apart the chairs and folding them up to get them out of the way. Renee’ finally made her way back to me because the security guys had had enough. They were yelling at folks and screaming at us. They were telling us that they didn’t care what our tickets had printed on them, if our asses weren’t in a chair, we were going to be pulled out and sent to the back.

Renee’ and I made our butts one with the only chair available… And just when they started pulling folks out of our row, the lights went dim. The show was starting and the security guys high-tailed it out of the pit.

It was crazy! It was hot! And it was violent!

A fight broke out right in front of us… There was this Marine who apparently went nuts for some unknown reason. His choice of punching bag was an unsuspecting wimpy longhaired guy. I tried to shield Renee’ from all this happening in front of us and managed to get a punch from the Marine on my right shoulder. The security guys didn’t want any part of it and the fight went on until the Police arrived.

That was the show that cured me of sitting as close to the stage as I could get. At least when it came to hard rock shows.

And I remember Angus Young’s Marshall Stack being louder than a jet engine. It was so loud that I couldn’t hear anything else even with my earplugs. Jeez!

I also remember bassist Cliff Williams putting down at least 18 beers in the two hours they played. I was very impressed!

One thing I got from AC/DC’s Family Jewels was seeing all the videos. Some that I had never seen before. But the one that really stuck in my mind… “You Shook Me All Night Long”. What was the deal with that video?

Sure… I can understand the busty blonde that Brian Johnson went to visit with a load of booze along with fish and chips. But when Johnson got there… She was riding a mechanical bull in lingerie. The wall behind her opened up to reveal AC/DC performing live. The band were surrounded by scantily clad women riding exercise bikes.

3 comments:

I was looking for something new to listen to, and decided I'd go off and look for something from whatever the last cd was that got the title spot for your latest post. On the way here, I thought "but what if it's a N-CCRS tape? That's no good." And it was. So I scroll down to the next entry only to see it's a Tremors cd. Foiled again!

But I did get a laugh out of it, as just the other weekend (during a seemingly never-ending day manning a booth at the flea market), after not having seen her for the longest time I ran into Susan (nope.), aka "the friend with a boyfriend in a local rockabilly band". Small world or something? I don't know...

Oh well, I guess it's more "Flight of The Conchords" listening for me.

When I picked up the CD at Hypnotica where Tremors bassist Slim Perkins works, he gave me a large bumpersticker. Since Stickboy have given up on Rock n' Roll stardom... I slapped that joker right over top of it.

I know. I saw them play once, a few years back when I was still at school. Plus, they are all really cool guys! That's always a plus.

I know you will be ashamed, but that Tremors show is, in fact, the only local show (of a total of five concerts lifetime) I have ever been to. Even sadder than that? Two of the five shoes I've been to featured MC Hammer. Oh, the shame!

Hypnotica? Is that the shop over by UNCG? if so, then Slim and the "boyfriend in a local rockabilly band" are the same dude. Even smaller world!